I'm dreaming of crappy furniture

quickly:

I woke up around 6 am on Tuesday morning, sweating, with a massive toothache and a pounding heart, because I had just had a dream that I woke up from my futon and Hillary Clinton had won the Republican nomination. I woke with such anxiety, and such a sense of futility and anger, that it took a moment to register what had bothered me most- that in my dream, I still owned a futon.

I think it stemmed from the moment I rolled over on our college apartment futon to see that George Bush had won the first time, as I had fallen asleep waiting for the outrageous results. I started crying, on behalf of everyone, with one leg up and the pillow falling slightly off the front end (casue that's how you sleep on a futon- uncomfortably, gymnastically... you adjust to anything in college).

except ideals, those didn't waver. in fact, the more i learned about the world, the more staunch my convictions became. I'd protest anything i could get my feet on, a canvas bag became the prominent platform for my vaguely formed ideas about social and economic injustice. i was a sponge for injustice, we all were, it's what helped start a totally balls-out, unashamed theatre company.

but now i'm voting for hillary clinton, and i don't own a futon anymore (that lumpy, beer stained symbol of so many of our transitions), and i don't go to protests anymore because i have to work. so many adjustments. so much reality.

barack says change but maybe i'm looking for a cold, executive hardass because i don't dream as much as i did at 19. i shop at target AND the market at grand army plaza. i'm adapting. i don't know how i feel about it.

i have health insurance to cover part of this nightmare tooth that hasn't felt better since that dream.

emerging from a hastily appointed 7 am saturday dental consultation ( i did not call my dentist all week due to the 'wait and see' policy) with some jerk who flat out refused to give me a cleaning because i woke him up, i held a bottle of vicodin in one hand and a village voice in the other and remembered that dream and felt a little bit in crisis- for myself, for the world, feeling the infected tooth and hoping it wasn't a sign, punishment, for somehow not helping to uninfect everything around me.

it still really fucking hurts.